For the second time this year, I was honored to receive an invitation by The Right Rev. Mark Lawrence (South Carolina, ret.), who is one of the founders of the Anglican Leadership Institute (ALI). The mission of ALI is to bring future leaders in the Anglican Communion together in community for study, teaching, reflection and nurture. Twice each year, for a full three weeks, fifteen to eighteen men and women arrive from the four corners of the earth to live together and work to break the culture barrier that would naturally keep them apart. Some are bishops, some senior clergy in their provinces and dioceses, and some are theologians and leaders of mission societies, both lay and ordained. But all of them are open to learning about leadership in the modern world, and all come away with relationships and partnerships around Gospel mission through this intensive learning community.
Both the American Anglican Council and the Anglican Leadership Institute share the same conviction about the essentials of leadership in the Church—namely, that the heart of the leader comes before the hands or skills of the leader. Both are essential, but the heart comes first (see Psalm 78:72). Bishop Lawrence shared how the focus of ALI is around three weeks of leadership beginning with the heart of the leader. In week 2, ALI moves on to the skills of the leader but with ongoing times of devotion, including healing prayer, for he heart of the leader. The final week focuses on leadership and mission within the emerging Global Anglican Communion.
We met for this eleventh ALI on Martha’s Vineyard at the FOCUS Camp with leaders from Mongolia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, Brazil/Recife, South America/Argentina, and North America/ACNA. During the third week on Global Anglicanism, from September 20-22, I had the privilege of sharing the story of how Global Anglicans in the 21st century are recovering the biblical, apostolic, and conciliar roots of the Communion of Anglican Churches. I shared how the last 50 years have seen the proliferation of false teaching, ungodly leadership, and failure of Church discipline at the diocesan, national and global levels of the churches of the Anglican Communion. That was the bad news. But the good news is the story of how biblically faithful, courageous, and resilient leaders in the Global South and Gafcon are responding to a new Reformation within the Anglican Communion. This is occurring through a renewed focus on mission (with GAFCON’s emphasis on proclaiming Christ faithfully to the nations) and a recovery of classical Anglican “conciliarism,” (with the development of a genuine covenanted communion based on interdependence and mutual accountability among the Anglican churches of the Global South, called the GSFA Cairo Covenant).
One of the strengths of the American Anglican Council since the 1998 Lambeth Conference of Bishops has been our ability to bring together biblically faithful, courageous, and resilient leaders from across the Communion. We tell the story of what is actually happening in the global Church with the facts, and we equip these leaders to bring together both “the faith once delivered” (Jude 3) and Jesus’ great command to “make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:16-20). We bring clarity out of confusion so that these heroic men and women can “keep the main thing the main thing”: bringing people to faith in Jesus Christ through Gospel ministry with both Word and the power of the Holy Spirit!
Many questions followed these two presentations. How could this false teaching and lack of discipline have gone on for so long? Why didn’t the existing decision-making bodies of the Anglican Communion stand up for the “Faith once delivered”? In the face of such systemic failures for so long, where can we now find Godly leadership in the Anglican Communion? What will a post-colonial Anglican Communion look like? And how can Global South and Gafcon work together to bring this biblically faithful, covenanted Communion into being?
A number of leaders asked that the AAC share these presentations in their own overseas provinces in the coming year. Please join me in prayer as we seek in 2024 to tell the story of the last 50 years, to share the facts and lay out the vision for a mission focused, biblically faithful, and conciliar Communion of Anglican Churches!
On Wednesday I was invited to address the question, Canon Law—why does it matter? It’s a challenging topic. Most people view canon law as being dry as dust! The basic message I shared was this: “Canon law can’t change your heart, but it can save your hide!” Canon law (the law of the Church) is not an end in itself. It is a subset of the theology of the Church and its mission. All of the laws or canons of the Church must serve the mission of the Church, to make disciples (Matthew 28). When people can see the connection between the laws or canons of the Church and making fully-devoted followers of Jesus Christ, the lights go on! And so there were also some invitations to come and share these insights with bishops and their chancellors overseas.
Bishop Mark Lawrence has done a masterful work as interim Director of the Anglican Leadership Institute, taking over leadership after the untimely death of Dr. Peter Moore. We wish him well as he turns over the leadership of ALI to a new director, the Rev Dr. Francis “Frogg” Orr-Ewing. [adosc.org/orr-ewing-to-lead-anglican-leadership-institute]. The American Anglican Council looks forward to this continuing collaboration with the Anglican Leadership Institute in supporting and sustaining biblically faithful leaders for emerging Anglicanism in the 21st century!
